Tehran, Iran, March 8
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
An Iranian military official has said that there is no obstacle to hinder the delivery of Russia's S-300 defense missile system to the country.
"The clear news about the case is that Iran and Russia have reached the agreements needed to do the job and as we speak there is no problem for conveying the S-300 missiles," Masoud Jazayeri, second-in-command of Iran's General Staff of Armed Forces said.
"I think the job will be done in the near future," he noted, Tasnim news agency reported March 8.
Some Israeli news outlets last week said Russia had been discouraged from delivering the missiles to Iran.
After Israel gave Russian President Vladimir Putin intelligence proving that weapons Russia sold to Iran were ending up in the hands of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Putin froze the transfer of S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Tehran, Breaking Israel News quoted Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida as reporting March 5.
Jazayeri further explained that Iran and Russia's general agreements regarding the missiles are now to be transformed into minor, executive agreements in order to become practical.
The $800-million contract to deliver S-300 to Iran was cancelled in 2010 by then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, falling in line with the UN sanctions imposed on Iran due to its disputed nuclear program. In turn, Tehran filed a currently pending $4 billion lawsuit against Russia in Geneva's arbitration court. However, Russia President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to lift the ban over delivering the long-overdue missile system to Iran in April 2015.